Federal funding coming for cleanup in refuge

Feb. 4, 2013

Brick, NJ-11/29/12-Bob Bielk/ Asbury Park Press Staff Photographer- Large amounts of debris from Superstorm Sandy washed up on the mainland next to the bay in the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Brick. Brick mayor Stephen Acropolis looks at a Boston Whaler boat that washed up in an area off Mantoloking Rd.

Written by

Kirk Moore

@KirkMooreAPP

Acropolis walks through a debris field in an area off Mantoloking Road after superstorm Sandy moved through the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Brick.

In late November, Brick Mayor Stephen Acropolis looks out over debris from superstorm Sandy washed up on the mainland next to the bay in the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Brick. / Bob Bielk/Asbury Park Press

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On the morning of Oct. 30, aerial photographers documenting the massive washovers at Mantoloking from superstorm Sandy captured another image in the background: a crescent-shaped floating mass of broken houses, docks and boats drifting on Barnegat Bay.

Driven on a southerly wind, the trash slick washed into marshes of the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, and stayed there as the storm tide receded. At the southern end of the bay, other huge masses of debris stranded in the marshes south of the Route 72 bridge, which extends to Long Beach Island.

Finally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has some money coming for cleanup. The $50.5 billion Sandy relief bill approved by Congress this week includes $68.2 million for repairs and debris removal at East Coast wildlife refuges hit by the storm.

“We have debris the full length of the refuge,” Forsythe manager Virginia Rettig said, adding the total volume still is not known. “We won’t have a number until we’re done.”

The wreckage included 176 boats, but about half of them have been removed with the help of their owners, insurance companies and state agencies. Those vessels were a big worry because of the fuel in their tanks.

“We don’t feel like we have any significant damage from contamination,” Rettig said.

Much of the heavy trash in the marsh is lumber from docks, and roofs and pieces of houses from devastated neighborhoods such as Tuckerton Beach, where some houses vanished in the massive nighttime storm surge of Oct. 29.

Rettig said refuge workers made an assessment in December of debris on the refuge, which covers 47,000 acres from Brick south to Brigantine and includes most of the surviving salt marsh along Barnegat Bay’s western shore. They used air boats and wide-tracked vehicles to penetrate the remote and soggy wetlands, so the cleanup itself will be a challenge requiring specialized equipment.

The refuge’s Wildlife Drive in Galloway remains closed as repairs continue, though some hiking paths and the bird observation platform on Bayshore Drive in Barnegat have reopened. In Brick, the deCamp Wildlife Trail off Mantoloking Road has reopened for its first 2,000 feet; the Brick marshlands were heavily trashed with storm debris.

The refuge’s Holgate unit, at the southern tip of Long Beach Island, remains closed to public access. But it is still part of the island, despite heavy washovers during Sandy. An anticipated new inlet there has not yet appeared.